Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s Test career will go past the 20-year mark immediately after one of Denesh Ramdin and Brendon McCullum announces who will bat first. Abhishek Mukherjee looks at the longest Test careers.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul has already gone past the 20-year mark in Test cricket on March 17 earlier this year. He is technically still not there, since he has not played a Test since that day, but he will get there the moment the toss results are announced (provided he does not have to pull out of the Test).

Twenty-year long Test careers were not rare in the earlier days of the sport for multiple reasons. George Headley, for example, had played 19 Tests till 1939; two more in 1948; and another in 1954. John Traicos’ 22-year gap had a lot to do with South Africa’s ban; Jack Hobbs had pulled off a superhuman effort in his post-40 days; while Brian Close’s performances did not allow him to go past 22 Tests in a 26-year Test career.

Let us look at the longest Test careers, then. Do note the stark difference between in days per Test for the batsmen of the yesteryears and the more recent ones.